What would you tell a younger you? A message board topic.

Friday, October 11, 2013

I sure wish I could have actually done this--tell myself things I know now!

Here is what I would have said:

1. I am not my weight! People can be overweight and still be attractive and successful!

2. I don't have to eat all that my Mom cooked. It was her way to show love. I would ask her to talk about her own life more and do other activities with me .

3. Howdy Doody time and the many hours after that can be for other activities besides lying in front of the TV--eating.

4. Reading books is a good activity but not for hours and hours everyday. Get up and out and move. I did do lots of activities outside actually. I don't know why what I did did not keep me trim. I guess I just ate even more than what that burned off.

5. Our grocery store was attached to our house! I would tell myself to stay out of the foods in that store. Candy, pastries, sandwich stuff, cookies, fruit, any food I wanted was readily available. I guess I would tell my parents to stop me when I would overdo the food.

6. Beg my 3 brothers to take me places. My 3 older brothers paid absolutely no attention to be and I did not go to them at all either. I was born when they were teens and even older. So they were not at all interested in a younger sister. I am not sure even now how to handle that.

7. I had a car at age 16 because my Mom did not drive and my Dad would not take me anywhere. The excuse was the grocery store that was open 7:00 am to 10:00 pm every day of the year. Now I would tell myself to go use that car to get to interesting places.

8. Join activities at school both high school and college. I was a bookworm. I only did school work. In my free time I took naps or rode my bike or helped out at home. I did gardening when I was in high school That was probably one of the best tings I ever did with my free time. I had about 20 rose bushes! But maybe that was not all that appropriate for a high school kid.

9. I really needed role models to show me the fun in life. I still struggle to find fun stuff to do.

I need to cogitate on this topic some more. Maybe imagining me as a young person doing fun things would help me now find fun things to do. My younger sister does not seem to have any problem filling her life with fun activities. But...she is as obese as I am. Hmmm....

ERIN1957
I always wondered, what it would be like to have a face to face talk with myself, like those commercials about weight loss. The young woman talking to herself in the kitchen(Medifast I believe). If I could see myself, perhaps it would sink in more.

But then again; I actually think perhaps this journey of weight and health, has bigger meaning. I do believe I was meant to be on this journey for so much more then weight. I think my journey has been and will be for so much more....like healing, growth, knowledge and self awareness. The journey has not been one part, but many parts, that will all come together some day as a whole, and a whole new me.

LIVINTODAY
It is difficult to find new activities when we enjoy the old sedentary ones, reading, cooking, watching TV, sewing, etc. so much! We need to focus on movement and for me that is walking. At first I was just so bored when I was walking - I felt like I needed somewhere to walk to and there wasn't anywhere to do that. After reading and hearing this for about the 40th time, it finally sunk in.......10 minutes three times a day is as good as 30 minutes a day! Yes! Finally a light went on and I said out loud, "I can be bored for 10 minutes - no problem!" So last may I started walking 10 minutes 3 times a day. I started with 5 minutes walking away from my front door and then back home; voila! 10 minutes! Then I realized that a walk around the block was less than 15 minutes - again 3 times a day and I was up to nearly 45 minutes. This summer I've lost weight instead of gaining. It is getting cooler now so I put a sweatshirt on in the morning and evening. I'll walk inside with a Leslie Sansone DVD when it gets really cold.

Again, just think - movement. Sit in a chair and move your arms and life and lower your feet if walking isn't an answer. It is amazing how many minutes you can get in just during the commercials of your favorite TV show.

You can overcome even with the challenges you are facing; just have faith and trust yourself and your decisions! 1154 days ago

Thought about it for my life and I would so agree about having fun as well as the other things you mention.

1) Have more fun. Took me a long while to learn this.2) Think about myself and what was wrong with "me" much, much less.3) Start living in the present moment NOW. 4) Don't set goals for the future, set goals for today. Fulfilling these will take care of the future.

CRAFTSFAN1
The reading made me think that you did the right things at the right time. There is an infinite number of ways to spend the time. You fed your mind, your creativity, your family relationships. Unfortunately you didn't feed you body completely the right way, but still, you fed it.

Nobody will be able to take away the knowledge that you acquired. Nobody will be able to take away your gardening skills. And also, nobody can't take away the leisure that you had reading or watching tv.

You are still acquiring knowledge to better feed your body and loose weight.

WILDFLOWERMA
Great post & reflection. I would tell my younger self to stop worrying so much about what other people think. It matters more what you think about yourself. Also, I would say avoid "fixer-upper men". You can't change them to suit your needs (and they probably don't want you to!)1154 days ago